Drink from the Firehose...

Thursday March 19

Sony's new Internet-based streaming TV service Vue is now available on PlayStation consoles in select markets, and will be coming soon to Apple's iPad, as cable cutting options available to consumers continue to grow.

Everyday millions of people around the world use Outlook and Salesforce to help run their businesses. In Office 2013, Microsoft introduced Apps for Office to let their partners add capabilities to Office, to extend it and integrate it with the services that users use every day to help them be even more productive in Office. As part of our ongoing...

With April 10th and the launch of the Apple Watch approaching, Apple Store retail employees have been receiving special training on the device, but special meetings will take place at retail stores starting next week to give all retail employees a chance to go hands-on with the watch.

Many employees will see the watch in person for the first time at this point, and Apple will use the meetings to give them further training on the device. In its training materials, Apple has told employees they will “be the first to see Apple Watch, the first to try it on and the first to share it with the world.”

Today in iLounge Deals we’re offering our readers a great deal on the new BACtrack Mobile Smartphone Breathalyzer for only $84.99—a savings of 57% off the normal price. BACtrack connects to your iOS device via Bluetooth and estimates your blood alcohol content (BAC) using a law enforcement-grade fuel cell sensor, with a companion app that can even estimate when your BAC will return to zero. You can also save your results, including what…

Standardizing on USB was arguably the best thing ever to happen to gadget lovers. Instead of having an unholy mess of chargers cluttering up your home, you just need a few USB cables and something to plug them into. I’ve previously reviewed the Lightning Rabbit Triforce and Truffol Station 5 USB chargers, which offer stylish options for the home or office. We’ve also reviewed a bunch of others.

When travelling, though, I pack light. I tend to just charge everything from my MacBook Pro, which is convenient but doesn’t offer the fastest of charging speeds. The Oneadapter Twist...

Popular shortcut app Launcher has been allowed back into the iOS App Store with all of its original features, while Pixelmator for iPad has been updated with a large assortment of improvements, including watercolor tools.

Swiss luxury watch maker TAG Heuer on Thursday at the Baselworld watch convention in Switzerland announced that it is partnering with Google and Intel to create a connected smartwatch. TAG Heuer will be responsible for designing and manufacturing the watch, which will have an Intel microprocessor and use Google's Android Wear platform. The smartwatch will be released later this year, at which point specific pricing and features will be revealed.

TAG Heuer's Carrera contemporary luxury sport watch TAG Heuer has high expectations for its upcoming smartwatch, with CEO Jean-Claude Biver calling it his "biggest announcement ever" in 40 years of working in the industry. The executive also predicted that the product will be the "greatest connected...

In early December we reported that one of the leading Swiss watch companies headed by Jean-Claude Biver lashed out at the Apple Watch for being too feminine amongst other things. Of course what he didn't reveal at that time was that his company was secretly racing to come up with a smartwatch that would eventually compete with Apple.

There will come a time, in a future not so far away, when it will be illegal for the average person to drive a car, predicted Tesla CEO Elon Musk. Autonomous vehicles will be exponentially safer, he said Tuesday at Nvidia's 2015 GPU Technology Conference in San Jose, California. Nvidia CEO Jen-Hsun Huang took the stage with Musk for an unrehearsed conversation about the future of cars and Tesla's aspirations to propel its electric vehicles into fully autonomous territory.

The Swiss watch market is bracing for the smartwatch movement, with many fearing another downturn for traditional mechanical timepieces much the same as when low cost Quartz movements were first introduced.

Industry players don’t intend to sit around and see how Apple Watch sells against traditional watches, however, as many of the watch world’s biggest luxury watchmakers— Tag Heuer, Breitling, Swatch, Frederique Constant—are showing off their first smart watches at Baselworld 2015 this week, the premier tradeshow for the jewelry industry where most Swiss watchmakers choose to unveil their latest creations each year.

Ergonis Software (www.ergonis.com) has annnounced Typinator 6.5, a new version of their text expander for Mac OS X.

The new version adds a helpful new feature that lets you define the way how the system-wide "smart substitutions" settings for quotes, dashes, etc. are handled within Typinator. French speaking Typinator users will be glad to hear that Typinator now also accepts French quoting style (with double angle quotation marks and non-breaking spaces) in the marker for nested abbreviations.

Searchware Solutions has announced Print Window 5.2, an update to their window printing utility for Mac OS X.

Integrated with the Mac OS X Finder, it allows users to print a file listing of folders with a simple key command (or other methods of triggering a file listing). In addition to adding full Mac OS X Yosemite support, version 5.2 adds the ability to export File Listings as a CSV file and sports an updated application icon.

We’ve already seen the potential of Apple’s ResearchKit platform to sign up large numbers of participants to medical studies in an incredibly short time, but a reported conversation between the founder of an open science non-profit and an Apple VP suggests that the potential goes far beyond this.

Fusion, in an extensive profile, reports that Apple may be intending to collect anonymised health data in a central database accessible to medical researchers around the world, enabling each to benefit from that shared data to forward their own studies. The vision was initially put forward at a conference back in September, long before ResearchKit was announced, by Stephen Friend, the founder of Seattle-based Sage Bionetworks, a...

We've all faced projects that require repetitive typing tasks. With Typinator, you can store commonly used text and images in quick keywords and abbreviations. From email templates to code snippets to website URLs, there's no easier way to recreate repetitive text at a moment's notice.

Third-party accessory maker designed by many on Thursday revealed plans for an Apple Watch housing line that offers protection from water, shock and dust, as well as a separate combination dock for simultaneous charging with iPhone.

HughPickens.com writes Bloomberg reports that according to a person with knowledge of the matter, Apple plans to start accepting non-Apple devices as trade-ins as the company seeks to extend market-share gains against Android smartphones. Apple is seeking to fuel even more iPhone 6 and 6 Plus sales after selling 74.5 million units in the last three months of 2014. Thanks to record sales, shipments of iPhones surpassed Android in the US with 47.7 percent of the market compared with Android's 47.6 percent. According to Apple CEO Tim Cook Apple "experienced the highest Android switcher rate in any of the last three launches in the three previous years." While Android phones don't hold their value as well as iPhones, it still makes sense for Apple Stores to accept them, says Israel Ganot, former CEO of Gazelle Inc., an online mobile device trade-in company. "Apple can afford to pay more than the market value to get you to switch over," says Ganot, "on the idea that you're going to fall...

While several automakers are currently in the process of developing autonomous vehicles, the road ahead for self-driving cars could be long, with numerous obstacles to overcome. According to the recent Autonomous Vehicles 2015-2035 report, published by IDTechEx, the challenges and technology have much in common. Autonomous vehicles require the integration of cameras, odometers, accelerometers, gyroscopes, GPS, sonar, leveraging sensors, green credentials and stealth of electric powertrains.

Of all the stereotypes we hear about Apple owners, there is perhaps none so enduring as the guy writing a novel on his MacBook in Starbucks. Well, one November, I became that guy. Fast-forward a few years, and I have a 110,000-word technothriller ready to unleash on an unsuspecting public.

I’d had an idea for a novel years earlier, but I’d initially done what almost everyone does when they have an idea for a novel: absolutely nothing. The gap between having an idea and having a completed novel seemed too enormous to contemplate, especially when it would have to be combined with, you know, working for a living.

But then someone told me about something called NaNoWriMo: National Novel Writing Month....

Pixelmator has today released a new update for the iPad version ($9.99) of its popular image editor. Version 1.1 includes a brand new watercolor painting feature, which can be used to create brand new pieces of art from a blank canvas or add stylistic additions to existing images and photos. Brushes overlay new colors additively with soft radiuses to create beautiful blends and shading. Pixelmator says they spoke to real artists to help design the brush strokes. It feels really nice to use.

Although watercolor painting is the headline addition, Pixelmator 1.1 also includes a new Color Picker with a swatch of previously selected colors, an updated rendering engine for better performance and much more. You have to see it in action … (video below)

Circus Ponies NoteBook stores and organizes your notes and other information in electronic notebooks that look and work just like the paper ones you've used all your life. With outlining, diagramming, sketching, voice annotation, even PDF mark-up, NoteBook helps you take great notes whatever your note-taking style. And NoteBook makes it easy to find anything with just a few clicks in the Multidex™, an auto-generated dictionary of the content in your Notebooks. Circus Ponies NoteBook is the perfect app for managing projects of any size, assignments and classwork, client information, research, and much more.

Organize all of your important information in electronic notebooks that look and work just like paper:

Stay organized with pages, tabs, sections, just like the paper notebooks you've used all your life

Store information of any kind and from any source, including notes, web clippings, documents, URLs, tabular data, action items, and...

Sponsored data business models benefit consumers by expanding the mobile ecosystem to new partners that want to foot part of the bill for consumers to use wireless data — according to the Strategy Analytics (www.strategyanalytics.com) Wireless Operator Strategies (WOS) service report, "Measuring the Success of Sponsored Data."

The web security exploit known as FREAK that I discussed last week was patched by Apple days after it was discovered two weeks ago. FREAK relied on a configuration issue in web servers combined with a flaw for backwards compatibility in many software libraries used to create a secure connection. But the patch only affected Apple’s operating systems—not all apps.

This highlights how apps can remain vulnerable due to developers’ choices. And Apple’s FREAK update only fixed the problem in iOS 8.2, OS X 10.8, 10.9, and 10.10. While I addressed part of that last week, there’s more to say.

AUSTIN—Meerkat is either the most annoying or groundbreaking app to strike it big at the South by Southwest Interactive festival. Live-streaming video, particularly on Twitter, has incredible potential: Meerkat has already been used to show the world a demonstration from Ferguson and a U.S. Secretary of Commerce swearing-in ceremony. But most of the 3-week-old iOS app’s 100,000-plus users are live-streaming complete garbage, like endless shaky clips of other people using Meerkat.

Early adopters, journalists, and brands love Meerkat because it’s a new platform to experiment with, but that doesn’t mean much in terms of longterm mainstream success. There’s a virtual graveyard full of apps that caught on at SXSW and promptly flamed out in the real world. But Meerkat has two advantages: More than two years of back-end development work to ensure high-quality live-streaming,...

If your budget is tight but you still want the new notifications and other stuff coming with Windows 10, Microsoft has your back -- depending on where you live. It just revealed the 4-inch Lumia 430 Dual SIM model that's Windows 10-ready for around 7...

Sky just spent a whopping £4.2 billion on Premier League broadcasting rights, so unsurprisingly, it's decided to make up some of the cost by increasing the prices of its various TV packages. The cheapest "Original" bundle will stay the same, but othe...

Some publications are singling out the new 12-inch MacBook’s single USB-C port as a major security risk. But the risks, which aren’t even new, are being overstated.

Read the full article at TidBITS, the oldest continuously published technology publication on the Internet. To get a full-text RSS feed, help support our work and become a TidBITS member! Members also enjoy an ad-free version of our Web site, email delivery of individual articles, the ability to make long comments with live links, and discounts on Take Control orders and other Apple-related products.

For years now, Opera Software's been creating speedy and data-saving internet browsers for consumers, making them available on desktop and mobile devices at no cost. But it doesn't want to stop there. The company, which is responsible for web-browsin...

We haven't built a truly sentient artificial ntelligence system yet, like the Terminator or C-3PO -- you know, the kind of AI that scares Elon Musk and Stephen Hawking. But a team of researchers believe they've at least found the secret to creating h...

This post was written by Amesh Mansukhani, senior technical product manager for Office 365 ProPlus and Alistair Speirs, senior operations program manager for Office 365 deployment.

On March 16th, Kirk Koenigsbauer announced the IT Pro and Developer preview for Office 2016. We encourage you to download the Office 2016 Preview, keeping in mind that this is an early release showcasing a limited number of features, with additional features available for preview over the next several months. Today, we’ll discuss the IT Control and Management capabilities specifically around deployment and upgrade management for enterprise environments.

When we released Office 365 ProPlus, we focused on reducing the burden of traditional software deployment by making Office deployment fast and easy, so it’s always up–to-date, just like you expect from a cloud service. At the same time,...

Music festivals already dole out plenty of perks if you have a VIP pass, but Coachella is trying something new this year: ordering upscale food from your phone. Roll up to the event with a VIP wristband and you can use Reserve's restaurant app to ord...

Wednesday March 18

Apple has singled out Greater China--including mainland China, Hong Kong and Taiwan--as a primary growth center. AppleInsider took a trip to learn more, starting with a week exploring Taiwan followed by a week in Hong Kong and a week in Guangdong Province in the People's Republic of China.

Tinnitus affects the ears but it originates in the brain. The condition, which causes ringing in the ears, is mainly triggered by age-related hearing loss and prolonged exposure to excessively loud noise. But neuroscientific studies reveal that tinni...

Tag Heuer's all set to take on the Apple Watch, and it's slated to reveal the new device sometime today. If you recall, the Swiss company has said that it's also making a smartwatch shortly after Cupertino announced its own last year. According to Re...

Android fans: you no longer have to watch on the sidelines as your friends play TV tennis with their iPhones. Rolocule has released Motion Tennis Cast, an Android version of its free sports game that uses screen mirroring tech (such as Chromecast, Mi...

A team at Stanford's School of Medicine has reportedly uncovered a potent new treatment method for combating one of leukemia's most aggressive forms -- and they did it pretty much by accident. While survival rates for B-cell acute lymphoblastic leuke...

Target has agreed to a $10 million settlement with lawyers for victims of its 2013 data breach, and CBS News reports it could pay individuals up to $10,000 each in damages. It has yet to be approved by a judge, but Target spokesperson Molly Snyder sa...

You may see yellow taxis as virtually synonymous with New York City transportation, but you might have to reconsider that image before too long. New Taxi and Limousine Commission data shows that Uber cars now outnumber cabs on NYC streets, with 14,08...

It's time to save some of your hard-earned money with our Daily Deals, featuring exclusive deals for AWT readers, hardware discounts and our own handpicked iOS and OS X sales. All prices are USD and subject to change. Please check prices before you purchase as some deals may expire quickly.

AWT's Daily Deals

MacPhun Focus [Now free, down from $9.99] To celebrate the launch of AppleWorld.Today, photo software developer Macphun is offering their popular Focus app for Mac for FREE readers of AWT.

This nifty photo software allows anyone to do a couple of super-cool things: (a) direct attention to the most interesting part of your photo and (b) use tilt-shift and motion blur effects towards...

It's not just the Circle K, strange things are afoot throughout San Dimas, California -- like the wacky 1000-foot-long, magnetically driven "water coaster" recently installed at a local Raging Waters park in the midst of a debilitating statewide drou...

Here are some of the best free apps, app updates and new apps that have landed in the App Store recently. Today's notable apps include a discount on Modern Combat 5, the new Alpha Omega game, and an update to Snapheal from Macphun. All app prices are USD and subject to change. Some deals may expire quickly, so grab them while you can.

iOS Apps Now Free

ColorStrokes [Now free, down from $1.99] iPhone version of the most popular Color Splash app for Mac.

Pilot's Path [Now free, down from $3.99] Experience the thrill of adventure with Pilot’s Path – an old school top down view helicopter flying game, perfectly optimized for Retina Display.

Just like its predecessor, the new iRig 2 plugs directly into the mini jack input of a mobile device. It lets musicians send an instrument signal to apps, such as IK’s AmpliTube, while also providing on-board output for real-time monitoring.

iRig 2 now comes with gain control, which lets users precisely adjust the input gain of their instrument to match their mobile device. This means that it can be customized to always provide the best sound, no matter what type of guitar, bass or line-level instrument or device is used.

Its new 1/4″ amplifier output, in addition to its traditional 1/8″ headphone output, allows iRig 2 to be plugged directly into a guitar amplifier or powered speakers without an adaptor. This helps to keep all cable connections tidy and organized.

A new FX/THRU switch allows iRig 2 to send either a wet or dry signal through the device. This means that guitarists can play live with an amplifier and use their mobile device with a tuner app, such...

Just because you're not splurging on a top-of-the-line smartphone doesn't mean that you have to settle for a tiny amount of storage. Samsung certainly thinks that way -- it just announced a 3-bits-per-cell flash memory chip that promises 128GB of sto...

Back when iOS 8 first launched, Launcher was one of the first apps to take advantage of the new widgets allowed in the Notification Center, and it introduced shortcut functionality that let users launch an app or complete a task like calling a specific person with a single tap.

Apple approved the app and allowed it to exist in the App Store for over a week, but then the company made the decision to remove Launcher from the App Store, calling it a "misuse" of widgets. Since then, Apple has gone on to make a series of questionable decisions about widgets, banning apps for similar widget offenses and then later changing its mind.

Up until now, Apple has not reversed course on Launcher, but that didn't stop ...

Apple today has released a pair of Safari betas for earlier version of OS X. Safari 7.1.5 beta for OS X Mavericks and version 6.2.5 beta for OS X Mountain Lion are both available on the Mac Developer Center for registered developers. Safari 8.0.5, which includes the same upgrades as the Mavericks and Mountain Lion versions, is not available as a separate download, but it comes as part of the OS X Yosemite 10.10.3 developer and public betas. Here are the focus areas for these Safari betas:

The 13-inch MacBook Pro and the 13-inch MacBook Air were once very different computers that served very different needs. One was bulkier but pretty fast and user-serviceable, while the other was thin-and-light to a fault, arriving with anemic low-power CPUs and GPUs, slow hard drives, and no easy means to upgrade.

In the last two-to-three years, that gap has narrowed substantially. The Air has become more powerful and less compromised, while the Pro has slimmed down and dumped features like user-replaceable RAM and its Ethernet jack. Both use Thunderbolt 2. Both use modern dual-core CPUs with some of Intel’s better integrated GPUs. They’re even priced in the same ballpark. What was once an easy recommendation has gotten more difficult.

Under the terms of an agreement Comcast made when it took over NBCUniversal in 2011, it might be forced to cut an agreement to offer NBCUniversal content on Apple's proposed streaming video subscription service.

Baird Equity Research believes that Apple could add another $30 billion in annual revenue to its bottom line by disrupting the cable industry with a streaming service.

Have you ever wanted to turn your iPhone into a universal remote for your audiovisual gear, in particular your TV? That’s the idea behind Pronto (US$59.99), a combination of a small Bluetooth device and an app that wants to replace all of your remote controls.

About four years ago several of us at The Unofficial Apple Weblog were given the opportunity to test a universal remote system that worked with the iPhone. Called The Peel, the device used a pear-shaped infrared blaster called The Fruit in concert with a cylindrical Wi-Fi device called The Wire and the Peel Remote app. Ultimately, I wasn’t too impressed with the device as it took up space, dropped connectivity with the iPhone, and the app didn’t have much going for it.

Flexibits just released the first teaser for the upcoming Fantastical 2 for Mac app. The teaser includes new iconography matching OS X Yosemite’s aesthetics similar to the iOS 7 and later versions of Fantastical 2 for iPhone and iPad. Fantastical 2 for Mac will obviously be the sequel to the popular language parsing calendar utility for Mac.

The new version of the smart calendar app is due out in one week on March 25th, the teaser reveals, and we’ll have a full, hands-on review at launch so stay tuned. Until then, check out the Fantastical 2 for Mac teaser here...

BMW's research and development head said on Wednesday that there are obstacles to collaborating with Apple beyond integrating iPhone support into vehicles, but did not completely rule out the possibility of the two companies building a car together.

Security company FireEye recently examined iOS and Android apps to determine whether they are vulnerable to the recently publicized FREAK attack. FREAK is a security flaw that allows a 2,048-bit SSL/TLS (Secure Sockets Layer/Transport Security Layer) encryption key to be downgraded to a weaker 512-bit key.

Via a man-in-the-middle attack, a hacker can use the FREAK expolit to intercept HTTPS connections and force the vulnerable clients to use the weakened form of encryption. Once compromised, the hacker potentially can access the sensitive data being transmitted via HTTPS.

Apple fixed the iOS FREAK vulnerability in iOS 8.2, but some apps remain vulnerable as they utilize their own OpenSSL libraries and connect to servers that remain unpatched. FireEye examined more than 14,000 popular iOS apps and found that 5.5% remain vulnerable to a FREAK attack.

Apple’s iPhones became Flickr’s most popular camera phones in 2008 and most popular cameras overall soon thereafter, but even now, iPhones constitute only 9.6% of the photo-sharing site’s userbase. Despite the iPhone’s undeniable popularity, over 90% of photographers are using other cameras: Canon has a 13.4% share, Nikon 9.3%, Samsung 5.6%, and Sony 4.2%, with tons of other brands following close behind. While the cameras in phones continue to improve every year, they’re not the best tools for photography — they’re just the ones most people carry with them all the time.

This week, B&H Photo Video's Midtown Manhattan superstore became the first of its kind to have an Apple-sanctioned store-within-a-store, showcasing the electronics maker's full lineup of Macs, iPads, Beats and accessories in Apple's familiar retail style.

Website advertisement companies have found a way to circumvent the protections introduced in iOS 8 to stop users from being kicked to the App Store because of certain cleverly-coded JavaScript advertisements.

I am now experiencing this myself, and it makes browsing on the iPhone unusable. Browsing to websites such as Reddit and Reuters and others now automatically open the App Store. In many cases, there is no way for me to read the actual content on the pages. You can see this happen in the video above.

This flared up as a serious issue last year, when users found they were being taken to random App Store pages without granting any kind of permission…

In iOS 8 beta 2, Apple supposedly had remedied the issue: “Safari now blocks ads from automatically redirecting to the App Store without user interaction.”. However, it seems...

As we approach the launch of the Apple Watch, retail employees who will be demoing the devices have been sharing information with various rumor sites, including MacRumors and 9to5Mac, detailing what they're learning about the Apple Watch and how the upcoming try-on process will work.

Apple Watch employees have already been receiving training on the Apple Watch, but special meetings will take place at retail stores starting next week to give all retail employees a chance to go hands-on with the watch.

Many employees will see the watch in person for the first time at this point, and Apple will use the meetings to give them further training on the device. In its training materials, Apple has told employees they will "be the first to see Apple Watch, the first to try it on and the first to share it with the...

This week's roundup brings more new accessories for the Apple Watch. Will it be as lucrative for tinkerers and developers as its iOS predecessors? We're about to find out.

Actionproof

If you're thinking about getting an Apple Watch, you’ve got to worry about breaking it. The $29 Bumper is (natch) a bumper to protect your precious new iOS device from scrapes, bumps, and bruises without sacrificing your access to or use of the screen. It’s an Indiegogo project, but seems well on its way toward raising the amount needed to go into production.

Q: Ever since I upgraded to iOS 8, my iPhone keeps popping up icons in the bottom left corner of the lock screen whenever I’m out. Things like Starbucks, the Apple Store, and my local supermarket’s app keep coming up. I know it’s a small thing, but I’m left handed and I’ve swiped them by mistake a couple of times when I take my iPhone out of my purse, and it’s a pain to be taken into an app I don’t want to…

Today during its latest Un-carrier event, T-Mobile announced new initiatives including brand new plans and pricing for businesses and a promise to all of its customers that it won’t increase prices. It’s also paying off bills for those locked into leasing plans on other carriers if they switch to T-Mobile.

That “Un-contract” guarantee that prices won’t increase goes for all of its Simple Choice plans (including Simple Choice promotional plans) as long as you remain a T-Mobile customer with a qualifying plan. However, the carrier will only offer the guarantee to those with unlimited 4G LTE data for two years. The guarantee will automatically start for all existing customers on March 22nd....

Twelve South (www.twelvesouth.com) has introduced a new accessory for the Apple MacBook: the US$39.99 BaseLift, an "utra-thin" folding pad and stand.

It attaches to the bottom of your MacBook and folds into a wedge, elevating your screen. It's designed to bring your keyboard to a much more comfortable typing angle.

Folded flat, BaseLift is a soft pad that protects your lap from the heat or cold of your aluminum MacBook. However, it's also compatible with all Apple laptops, from the 11-inch MacBook Air to the 15-inch MacBook Pro.

Read the full article at TidBITS, the oldest continuously published technology publication on the Internet. To get a full-text RSS feed, help support our work and become a TidBITS member! Members also enjoy an ad-free version of our Web site, email delivery of individual articles, the ability to make long comments with live links, and discounts on Take Control orders and other Apple-related products.

Tumult has rolled out Hype 3.0 and Hype Professional, a major update to its HTML5 animation builder for OS X.

Hype supports the latest HTML5/CSS3 features and uses a keyframe-based animation system with a recorder to create motions and transitions. Hype Professional is a new in-app purchase to Hype 3.0, adding features targeted at graphic design pros.

Apple will introduce several major initiatives to ready its retail stores for the Apple Watch’s launch in April, according to sources briefed on the upcoming changes. Starting on April 10th, Apple will allocate 15 minutes per customer for in-store try-on appointments, using 10 or more try-on stations to manage what’s expected to be a steady flow of customers interested in having hands-on time with the Watch. While customers will not necessarily be required to have an appointment, they will be time-limited and guided during the hands-on experience. Additionally, they will be given the opportunity to place a reservation at the time of try-on for a particular model, and make a follow-up...

With Apple's anticipated subscription television service said to be targeting a price between $30 and $40 per month, one analyst has predicted that the company will come in on the low end of that range, or else risk pricing itself out of the market.

If you’re tired of just putting your iMac atop a pile of books and want to add that extra little bit of height with a bit more style and functionality, Satechi has you covered with the Premium Aluminum Monitor Stand ($70). This stand has a modern style that fits in perfectly with your Mac’s aesthetic while allowing you to more easily get your screen up to a comfortable eye level to eliminate neck strain.

At an event in New York City this morning, T-Mobile unveiled its ninth Un-carrier initiative, which is aimed at business owners. T-Mobile CEO John Legere took the stage to unveil a simple new plan for businesses small and large, which is priced up to 40 percent lower than similar business plans from AT&T and Verizon.

T-Mobile's new business plan is priced at $16 per line for businesses that use under 20 lines, and at over 20 lines, the price drops to $15 per line. 10 lines (the minimum allowed), for example, costs $160, while 100 lines costs $1,500. At 1000 lines, the price drops even further, to $10 per line.

Each line comes with 1GB of data, and T-Mobile is giving businesses multiple options for purchasing additional data. Data can be purchased per line or pooled and distributed between many employees. Pooled data costs $4.75 per GB at a 100GB minimum and drops to $4.25GB at 1TB, but there...

Apple Watch signage in Apple Stores has been going up all around the world since last week, but the Basel Apple Store in Switzerland appears to be especially decked out with Apple Watch promotional material. Switzerland isn’t among the 9 countries where the Apple Watch will be made available on April 24th, but the Basel location is the center of attention for the watch industry this week with BaselWorld, a watch and jewelry trade show, kicking off tomorrow.

We’ve already seen a few of the Apple Watch competitors from Swiss watchmakers launching luxury smartwatches including hardware from ...

Microsoft on Tuesday announced Windows Hello, a feature that allows users to access computers and devices running Windows 10 via face recognition, iris identification or fingerprint matching. In addition, the company raised the curtain on Microsoft Passport, a programming system that IT managers, software developers and website authors can use for signing in to websites and applications. Passport uses Hello or a PIN to identify users, who then can access websites and apps deploying Passport without the need for a password.

Earlier today we posted a report titled "The Industry knows that the Pay-TV Ice Cube is Melting," that described how TV as we knew it was going to radically change over the next year with multiple new TV services. The report estimated that Apple's new Apple TV service would cost somewhere in between $25 and $35 per month. There was no price known for Sony's upcoming service until now.

Despite reportedly refusing to engage in discussions to join Apple's rumored web television initiative, cable provider Comcast may have no choice but to eventually capitulate thanks to regulatory concessions the company agreed to in 2011 as part of its takeover of NBCUniversal.

Tumult, developer of the user-friendly HTML5 web site and animation builder Hype, today announced two major updates to the powerful OS X application.

Hype 3 ($49.99) is a free upgrade for Hype 2 owners, refreshing the app with a new user interface — notably with a Yosemite-matching Light color theme — while making improvements to HTML accessibility, timing functions and timeline adjustments. Using Hype, even amateur designers can create interactive HTML5 web sites that work perfectly on desktop, laptop, tablet, and smartphone screens; no coding is required.

Piper Jaffray analyst Gene Munster claims in a note to investors that Apple has a small team working in and exploring the augmented reality field. Munster believes that while augmented reality is still a decade away from broader consumer adoption, Apple is preparing for the next evolution in computing and will be able to offer fashionable wearables that people will actually want to wear."While it is limited, we believe Apple has a small team of engineers exploring augmented reality applications. We believe that at the core, the group is likely trying to understand a wearable interface that design would ultimately make fashionable/socially acceptable. At this point, we believe it is difficult to determine if or when these experiments might yield a product."Google Glass is perhaps the most notable example of a wearable that, while revolutionary in many aspects, created some uncomfortable situations for those wearing the device in public. Glass Explorer Edition was quick to be banned...

Welcome to Happy Hour 006. In this episode Zac, Seth, and Benjamin discuss new Apple Watch details and wrap up the need-to-know information, a new controversial Steve Jobs documentary, and the future of USB-C. How will it affect future iOS devices and Macs? The Happy Hour podcast is available for download on iTunes and through our dedicated RSS feed…

Apple has pulled The Whole Pantry app from its U.S. and Australian App Stores amid controversy surrounding the app’s creator, The Sydney Morning Herald reports. Australian app developer Belle Gibson’s claim of healing herself from terminal cancer without conventional treatment came under scrutiny last week after friends and doctors voiced doubts about her diagnosis, and charities reported that they hadn’t received funding Gibson…

When we look at devices like the iPhone 6 at a mere 6.9mm thickness or the new MacBook weighing just 2 lbs and a scant 13.1mm thick, it's hard to remember what it was like when the first iPods came out. YouTube user Canoopsy made a video tribute to the second-generation iPod that shows just how far Apple and technology have come in 14 years.

Apple has removed an app called The Whole Pantry from the App Store and the Apple Watch app showcase, following recent controversy surrounding its backer, Australian healthy-living celebrity Belle Gibson.

Apple is apparently hunting down content for its purported streaming television service.

The Wall Street Journal now claims Discovery and Viacom are also in talks with Apple to offer programming through the service. Yesterday, the publication cited sources as saying Apple is discussing options with Disney, CBS and 21st Century Fox.

Netting one or both broadcasters would be a major step for Apple, as Discovery owns the Discovery Channel, Animal Planet and TLC, while Viacom controls MTV, Comedy Central and Nickelodeon. Viacom was one of the providers rumored to be engaged in direct negotiations with Apple over a similar solution in 2013.

Everyday millions of people around the world use Outlook and Salesforce to help run their businesses. In Office 2013, we introduced Apps for Office to let our partners add capabilities to Office to extend it and integrate it with the services our users use every day to help them be even more productive in Office.

Today, as part of our ongoing strategic partnership with Salesforce, the new Salesforce App for Outlook was announced to give users a great new way to work with Salesforce right from within Outlook. This lets users view Salesforce contacts, leads, accounts and opportunities in the context of an email from a customer. Salesforce for Outlook works with Outlook 2013, Office 365, Outlook for Mac and the Outlook Web App (OWA).

You can read the full announcement from Salesforce as well as more about the...

If an Apple Watch face that counts off the seconds until you die doesn’t motivate you, nothing will.

The Life Clock application for the Apple Watch, designed by digital design group Rehabstudio, estimates how much time you have left on this rock, adding minutes for healthful activity and subtracting them when you indulge in bad habits. As such, it extrapolates what your behavior means for your future.

Timekeeping is one of the tent pole features of the Apple Watch. Jony Ive has bragged about how deeply his team researched the history of horology while developing the device. Apple says there will be nine official faces available...

It's too soon to tell if Apple Watch will be a smash hit, but CEO Tim Cook said in a new interview that the new device “will be the first modern smartwatch—the first one that matters.”

Cook told Fast Company that the company hasn’t put any sales expectations on the watch because the need for an iPhone 5, 5c, 5s, 6, or 6 Plus to work “creates a ceiling.”

But the watch will be an important step forward for the industry, just as the iPod, iPhone, and iPad were, because it will create a new computing experience.

“The inputs that work for a phone, a tablet, or a Mac don’t work as well on a smaller screen,” Cook said. “Most of the companies who have done smartwatches haven’t thought that through, so they’re still using pinch-to-zoom and other gestures that we created for the iPhone.”

Jon Phillips knows a thing or two about the current smartwatch market, having reviewed pretty much all the Android Wear watches and dozens of fitness bands over the past couple of years. He’s a watch guy. But when he shows up to work at Macworld HQ every day, the watch strapped to his wrist usually isn’t a smartwatch at all. And he’s a little concerned Apple is trying to do too much, adding in features that don’t really matter and on other watches, don’t even work that well. So he dropped by the podcast this week to share his thoughts with Glenn and Susie.

We also discuss the long-anticipated Apple TV streaming service, rumored to be launching this fall. Glenn and Susie are both cord-cutters, so we talk about how fragmented the viewing experience can be when you aren’t paying for a cable or satellite subscription, even though it has some advantages. And how will Apple be different than Sling TV or (RIP) Aereo?

Launcher is coming back to the App Store, after a fracas with Apple late last year over the rules regarding widgets in the Today view of Notification Center. According to the developer, Greg Gardner, Apple has changed its mind on how widgets in Notification can function—something we’ve seen before. Launcher will be back in the App Store tomorrow.

It’s worth noting that the app was originally pulled because Apple said apps were not allowed to have widgets that launched other applications. Apple has seemingly had a change of heart, because the application is returning with the exact same features as six months ago. Read on for the full rundown on what happened....

I’m a singer whose voice accidentally launched a thousand lines of code. A girl who grew up in the woods, singing for the trees but one day, opened her laptop and found a forest of friends and fans waiting to be known. My music has always sown the seeds of my dreams, but new technologies have been the thing that’s made them bloom. With video chats hacked into live interactive global concerts, I’ve toured the world without leaving my bedroom. Then I’ve gotten on planes to touch stages in those cities I’d only seen through computer screens.

As a millennial I’m a digital native, but I’m only an honorary tech geek. My amazing community of fans hold my hands and together we’ve bushwhacked a new path into the music industry, through social networks and...

A relative handful of people have been able to wrap an Apple Watch around their wrists, but that’s not keeping accessory manufacturers from working on clever and useful gizmos to keep your Watch protected and charged. Nomad has announced two products for the Watch. First up is the US$59.99 Pod, which combines a niche for the Watch’s magnetic charging pad, a spool to wrap the cable around, and an 1,800 mAh battery pack into one sleek package. The company is also touting the $59.99 Stand for Apple Watch, a sleek aluminum stand for charging your smartwatch.

The Pod comes in three different finishes to accent your Watch — space grey, silver, or matte black. The hockey puck-shaped device has a dimple in the center into which the charging pad slips, surrounded by a spool to...

English, who was home in St. John’s last week for a family funeral, decided to stock up on about 11 kilograms of moose meat to bring back to Ottawa.

Before heading to the airport on Sunday, English put the meat in a hard shell suitcase, along with a brand-new suit and other personal belongings. However, when he arrived at the airport in Toronto, where he had a four-hour layover before a connecting flight to Ottawa, his luggage was nowhere to be seen.

“I had four moose roasts, four moose steaks, three packs of ground moose and four packs of moose sausages,” he told CBC Radio’s St. John’s Morning Show on Wednesday.

You’ve heard of “First World Problems”? This is definitely a Newfie Problem.

Rick Tetzeli, Executive Editor of Fast Company, recently interviewed Apple's CEO Tim Cook. It's one of the very best interviews that I've read in some time. Our report only covers a few points from that great interview but they're points that will likely be quoted for years to come.

China Unicom and China Telecom announced today that they will start selling the iPad Air 2 and iPad mini 3 to customers starting March 27. This is the first time the carriers, two of the top three largest in the country, will offer customers in China the Wi-Fi + Cellular models of Apple’s latest generation tablets.

The iPads will include support for the necessary TD-LTE and FDD-LTE standards to run on the Chinese carriers and also include support for other cellular standards, including DC-HSDPA, HSPA+, in the same model. Apple first started...

The PGA Tour's support of Apple Pay will expand with the upcoming Arnold Palmer Invitational event, where fans will be able to purchase both merchandise and concessions with their iPhone 6 or iPhone 6 Plus.

Popular recipe app, The Whole Pantry, was quietly pulled from the Australian and US app stores amidst allegations of fraud by app creator Belle Gibson, reports The Sydney Morning Herald. The 20-something entrepreneur rose to fame, even working closely with Apple on a Watch app, following her pronouncement that she healed herself from terminal brain cancer using a healthy lifestyle.

A recent investigation by Fairfax Media suggests Gibson failed to distribute fundraising money she collected for charity. As reported by Fairfax's The Age, Gibson publicly claimed to have collected up to $300,000 in...

Apple’s iOS 8.2 eliminated the FREAK security flaw in Safari, but FireEye researchers found a handful of popular iOS apps are still vulnerable to attack even when running on iOS 8.2. Hundreds of others still connect to vulnerable HTTPS servers, leaving them open to attack when running on iOS versions lower than iOS 8.2. Shopping, medical and finance apps were all mentioned as possible targets in FireEye’s plea for app developers to remedy…

While some may argue about the importance of locking your iPhone or other iOS device with a passcode, in this day of identity thieves and other ne’er-do-wells, it’s generally something we here at iLounge strongly recommend users do. In fact, if you’ve got a device with Touch ID, there’s really little good reason to not have a passcode, which was Apple’s primary motivation for introducing the feature. While you probably…

Earlier this month we posted a report titled "The Apple Watch has an Eye on the Enterprise Market," where we noted that enterprise app developers like Salesforce, Citi Mobile and Evernote were jumping on the Apple Watch right out of the gate with more business apps on the way. Today ...

In an interview published Wednesday, Apple Chief Executive Tim Cook discussed a slew of topics ranging from Apple corporate culture, to the prospects for the Apple Watch, to whether the company's all-encompassing product ecosystem is still manageable.

On March 9, Tim Cook announced that the Apple Watch will be available for pre-order on April 10, 2015. What's more, interested customers can visit an Apple Store to see the device in person, and even try one on. For many, getting hands-on time with the device will be as easy as strolling into the store on the 10th, as long as you don't mind waiting a bit (and you're in a country where the Watch is set to debut).

We've compiled the following information on how you can see an Apple Watch in person on April 10th. Ready your wrist! Here we go.

In an Apple Store

Where

As Cook said, you'll be able to see an Apple Watch at Apple retail stores in the following locations:

Digital Film Tools, developer of visual effects software, has launched EZ Mask 3.0 (http://tinyurl.com/yn2dds). It's an update of the interactive image masking tool capable of extracting almost any object in an image.

Capparsa (http://www.capparsa.com ) has announced TimeTag 2.0, an update to their timesheet application for Mac OS X that organizes and groups your time records so you can quickly see how your time was spent at a glance.

Version 2.0 brings an iPad-like interface to the Mac. Records and timers are always visible, and exporting is just one click away. Managing timers from the menu bar is now faster, so you can start, stop and set activities for timers without clicking into the full app, according to the folks at Capoparsa.

A new device allows users to access a locked device running iOS 8.1 through a brute-force attack, even with the “Erase data after 10 attempts” setting on, according to security company MDSec. The IP Box — available in England for £200 (about $293) — bypasses Apple’s security measures by cutting the iPhone’s power after each failed attempt at guessing the PIN, shutting down the phone before the attempt can be logged in…

Today’s post was written by Zig Serafin, corporate vice president for the Skype for Business team.

Enabling people to connect with one another is central to Microsoft’s mission to reinvent productivity and help people make the most of every moment. For us, connecting people means delivering experiences capable of conveying all forms of human expression—verbal, written, visual and emotional. In today’s modern workplace, productivity will increasingly be centered on conversations, whether in writing, in person, via phone or video conference call. People need communications tools that allow them to express themselves in the most natural and approachable way possible, and that work the way they do—fluidly across locations and devices.

Together with our customers and partners, Microsoft has transformed enterprise communications. Over 100 million people now use Microsoft Lync to communicate for work, with 79 percent of U.S. enterprises currently using or planning...

A relatively new $300 device could allow attackers to crack the PIN codes on out-of-date iPhones or iPads, taking advantage of a flaw in iOS versions older than 8.1.1 that allows unlimited attempts at PIN entry, even when users enable Apple's 10-try limit.

FileMaker, Inc. (www.filemaker.com) has announced the program for the 20th anniversary edition of the FileMaker Developer Conference (http://www.filemaker.com/r/devcon2015) , the largest annual gathering of worldwide FileMaker independent and corporate custom business solution developers, trainers and users.

"Experience the Possibilities" is the theme of the event. DevCon 2015 will be held July 20-23, 2015, at the Cosmopolitan of Las Vegas, Nevada, with a projected 1,200 FileMaker enthusiasts and 50 speakers participating.

Apple is negotiating to add the Viacom and Discovery families of networks to its growing Apple TV subscription service, The Wall Street Journal reports. Adding any of Viacom’s MTV, Comedy Central and Nickelodeon networks or Discovery’s Animal Planet, TLC and Discovery Channel would go a long way toward turning Apple’s TV package into one of the more robust alternatives to standard cable and could help justify a price tag that’s…

Yesterday we posted a report titled "Rumor Hints that this could be the Year of Apple TV," which provided a video from the Wall Street Journal wherein Shalini Ramachandran explained what could be in the works for Apple TV this fall. Today, Ramachandran's full report was published.

In an exclusive interview with Fast Company, Apple CEO Tim Cook discusses a wide range of topics with interviewer Rick Tetzeli, from Steve Jobs' ongoing legacy within the company to the mixed reception of the Apple Watch over the last few weeks.

Cook notes the different angles Apple took in developing ways to interact with the Apple Watch, thinking of it as its own piece of technology and not just another smartphone or tablet.

He continues that most of the companies that have made smartwatches in recent years "haven't thought that through", resulting in lesser and more cumbersome products. We weren’t first on the MP3 player; we weren’t first on the tablet; we weren’t first on the smartphone. But we were arguably the first modern smartphone, and we will be the first modern smartwatch—the first one that matters.

Openbay is an award-winning online marketplace app that's designed to help consumers' comparison shop for automotive repair and maintenance and save upwards of 50% by shops competing for their business. The economist described Openbay as a website and app that gives negotiating power to motorists. Today, Openbay is announcing that their mobile app will begin accepting Apple Pay.

Rick Tetzeli, Executive Editor of Fast Company and coauthor of Becoming Steve Jobs, had the chance to sit down with Tim Cook for a reasonably long Q&A. Presumably, this interview was done as background for the book.

Apple has removed the award-winning healthy eating app The Whole Pantry from the App Store and its featured Apple Watch apps page amid allegations that its creator Belle Gibson committed fraud, according to The Sydney Morning Herald. The report states that Gibson is accused of making false claims about her cancer diagnosis and failing to donate thousands of dollars collected during fundraisers to charities.

Apple has removed The Whole Pantry from its Apple Watch featured apps page Apple had been promoting The Whole Pantry as a featured Apple Watch app on its website over the past week, although it has updated the page today to remove the listing. The app also appears to have been pulled from the App Store worldwide...

The backup tools that come with Mac OS X don't support the Windows native file system NTFS and work on the file level only which has a negative effect on computer performance. Paragon Boot Camp Backup backs up NTFS Boot Camp partitions at the sector level.

AUSTIN—You know we’ve reached peak South by Southwest when a Republican senator from Kentucky chooses that event as the launch pad for his personal brand. (Ok, maybe it is pretty fitting after all, seeing as it’s a giant launch pad for anything and everything you can think of.) Senator Rand Paul took the stage on Sunday to talk tech shop with moderator Evan Smith from the Texas Tribune.

He didn’t use the panel as an opportunity to announce a presidential campaign for 2016, but he kind of hinted that it would be coming around the corner. His actions scream of candidacy: He just opened an office in Texas, he’s experimenting with social media, and he’s making the press rounds. He certainly knew how to butter up the crowd in Austin.

In an interview with Fast Company, Apple CEO Tim Cook took questions about the legacy of Steve Jobs, the Apple Watch, and Apple’s future. Cook defended the Apple Watch by comparing it to the original iPod, whose critics questioned its purpose and price. As for current critics who say that Apple is changing, Cook points out that the company also changed under Jobs, who Cook described as “the best flipper in the world.” But he said that the one thing that will never change at Apple is its core values.

Read the full article at TidBITS, the oldest continuously published technology publication on the Internet. To get a full-text RSS feed, help support our work and become a TidBITS member! Members also enjoy an ad-free version of our Web site, email delivery of individual articles, the ability to make long comments with live links, and discounts on Take Control orders and...

To celebrate the 25th anniversary of Photoshop, CreativeLive asked eight Photoshop experts to each try to complete a project in Photoshop 1.0. The video is funny, and it shows how far photo editing (and computing) has evolved over the past quarter-century.

Read the full article at TidBITS, the oldest continuously published technology publication on the Internet. To get a full-text RSS feed, help support our work and become a TidBITS member! Members also enjoy an ad-free version of our Web site, email delivery of individual articles, the ability to make long comments with live links, and discounts on Take Control orders and other Apple-related products.

Barbie, who turns 56 this year, finally may get a voice of her own -- but opponents are working hard to keep the talking version of the iconic doll out of children's hands -- and homes. Mattel plans to bring out Hello Barbie in time for Christmas. However, child advocacy group Campaign for a Commercial Free Childhood has organized an online petition calling on Mattel CEO Christopher Sinclair to stop production of the toy. It's not so much Hello Barbie's talking -- it's her listening that has parents up in arms.

Q4OS has the potential to become a new attention-getter among up and coming Linux distros. But this distro has a way to go before its development reaches full functionality. Right now it is working its way to a non-beta version 1.0 release. New beta versions are frequently released, often a few weeks to a month apart. The latest release was version 0.5.25 on February 4. This new distro is fast and runs extremely well on low-powered aging computers.

The top pay TV operators in the United States added 101,000 new subscribers during the fourth quarter to end a roller coaster year in 2014 according to the latest data from Strategy Analytics (www.strategyanalytics.com)

The declining trend in pay TV subscribers in North America, seen during the second and third quarters, reversed in the fourth quarter, with overall growth in both the US and Canada.

Discovery and Viacom are in discussions with Apple to be included in its rumored streaming TV service, reports The Wall Street Journal. The partnerships could see mid-tier channels such as Discovery Channel, Animal Planet, TLC, MTV, Comedy Central and Nickelodeon available through the subscription-based service on devices including the iPhone, iPad and Apple TV.

The Wall Street Journal reported earlier this week that Apple is planning to launch a streaming TV service anchored by American networks ABC, CBS and Fox. The rumored service would offer a lightweight package of about 25 channels for between $30 to $40 per month. Apple is expected to announce the service at WWDC in June ahead of a September...

Kodi (was XBMC) is an award-winning free and open-source (GPL) software media player and entertainment hub that can be installed on Linux, OS X, Windows, iOS, and Android, featuring a 10-foot user interface for use with televisions and remote controls. It allows users to play and view most videos, music, podcasts, and other digital media files from local and network storage media and the internet.

Note: To install Kodi on OS X 10.9 Mavericks or later, you need to right-click the application after it has been installed and select "Open" from the list (this need only be done once). Alternatively, you can go to System Preferences -> Security & Privacy -> General. From there, unlock the lock at the bottom of the window and "Allow apps downloaded from: Anywhere." This second method is the preferred method, as you will no longer be bothered for future XBMC...

Nisus Software has released Nisus Writer Pro 2.1, an update to their word processor for Mac OS X.

Now 640bit and sandboxed, version 2.1 includes iCloud support, autosave, versions, bug fixes, improvements, and macro language enhancements. These join a feature set that includes multilingual text support, powerful find and replace, a style system, and more.

Nisus Writer Pro 2.1 also contains the following fixes and additions:

°Added support for Mac OS X autosave, where changes to all opens documents are saved regularly;

AUSTIN—On-demand transit app Uber is ubiquitous, but it typically hogs the ride-sharing spotlight for all the wrong reasons. Lyft is perfectly content to let its rival soak up the negative attention, because despite the constant comparisons between the two apps, their approach to business nothing alike.

Lyft has a reputation for friendliness. While its cars are no longer decked out in fuzzy pink mustaches (which some of us actually liked), the dashboard glowstache replacement is a welcoming sign. Riders hop in the front seat and get to know their drivers, though the introductory fist bump is no longer mandatory. Lyft hasn’t jumped into international markets like Uber because it wants to establish ride-sharing as a de facto public transportation system in the States first.

Hear greatly improves audio quality in movies and music throughout all of your Mac OS X applications. With Hear, music is richer, movie sound and dialog is clearer and games will blow you out of your chair!

3D Sound - Like movies? like'em more with virtual cinema quality sound experience. Sound will approach you from all angles, even from behind. You are there with Hear.

Voila is a screen-capture, recording, and annotation tool that is a full-featured replacement for Mac's screen-capture and screen-recording capabilities. It has a large and robust set of editing, organizing, annotation, and effects tools that allows the user to create and add details to screenshots, tutorials, videos, and presentations.

With Voila you can record full screen video or a selected region, along with the audio from the computer or from a mic. You can export videos in different file formats, or upload to YouTube, FTP, or SFTP.

Apple is supposedly making a long play for augmented reality systems that one analyst believes will potentially pivot on the company's current push into fashion, an initiative set to bear fruit with Apple Watch in April.

If you've been wondering about the fuss over the speedier HTTP/2 web standard, you now have an opportunity to check things out first-hand. Google has released the first version of its experimental Chrome Canary browser with support for the final draf...

I've been trying to backup a Xsan 4 Volume (10.10.2) on promise vtrak E610F with no luck .
once I've been trying host the Time Machine backup drive on OS X Server 10.0.2 and use it on one of the Xsans' clients .
every time the backup finishes , the client is trying to backup the all Xsan volume again and no incremental with an error message "Backup volume is out of space , find another place to backup to... "
alternatively , I've tried to connect the backup Volume and run the backup direct from there ,
but again it's not backup it incrementally , and running out of space after it's first backup .
am I missing something about xsan4 compatibility ?

Here's the first X-class solar flare of 2015, which erupted on March 11th. Here's the good part: it was so powerful it caused radio blackouts in many parts of the globe. According to NASA, it was an X2 flare: an explosion on the sun's surface that's ...

Tuesday March 17

I have roughly 100TB on xsan, and would like to backup this data onto another san. I'm wondering if there are software out there that does good compression with video files. Allocating another 100TB would be so costly, son wondering how does every backup their data.

Light therapy is a safe, easy way to kill cancer and treat other diseases, but it's normally limited by its nature to illnesses that are skin-deep. Washington University researchers aren't daunted, however. They've developed a phototherapy method tha...

Note: Safari is available by opening App Store.app and clicking on the Updates tab.

Apple Safari is Apple's web browser that comes with OS X Yosemite. Safari is faster and more energy efficient than other browsers, so sites are more responsive and your notebook battery lasts longer between charges. Built-in privacy features are stronger than ever. It works with iCloud to let you browse seamlessly across all your devices. And it gives you great ways to find and share your favorites. Put it all together, and no other browser offers such a rich web experience.

3D printers can build anything from prosthetics and musical instruments to Hershey chocolates. But, even as the technology continues to make strides with materials (metal, concrete, etc.) and takes on full-fledged architectural projects, it seems to ...

Rumors surrounding Apple's purported subscription online television service are gathering steam, as a report on Tuesday claims Discovery and Viacom are in talks over partnership possibilities, joining other major content providers for what could be a disruptive product launch later this year.

Microsoft's leaner, meaner, latest iteration of Windows is coming in just a few months, and it's launching in 170 countries, in 111 languages. Don't forget: Windows 10 is a free upgrade if you're already using Windows 7 or 8. Hiding in its imposing s...

Catch up on today's top stories in the Daily Roundup. Nintendo talks about its next-generation console and mobile gaming. Meanwhile, Google decided to remove the steering wheel from self-driving vehicles because humans are "unreliable" and a new web ...

Apple is apparently bending over backwards to make sure that its oft-rumored streaming TV service gets off the ground. New York Post sources claim that the company is willing to share viewer data with the networks, including demographics and viewing ...

Recently discovered public documents show Apple has leased two buildings at Main Street Cupertino, an upcoming mixed use development currently under construction across from Apple's Campus 2 headquarters.

It isn't the motion of the ocean that matters so much as what you do with the waves. At one Australian naval base, those waves are being put to use providing steady streams of both electricity and potable water, all while generating zero emissions. I...

It's time to save some of your hard-earned money with our Daily Deals, featuring exclusive deals for AWT readers, hardware discounts and our own handpicked iOS and OS X sales. All prices are USD and subject to change. Please check prices before you purchase as some deals may expire quickly.

AWT's Daily Deals

MacPhun Focus [Now free, down from $9.99] To celebrate the launch of AppleWorld.Today, photo software developer Macphun is offering their popular Focus app for Mac for FREE readers of AWT.

This nifty photo software allows anyone to do a couple of super-cool things: (a) direct attention to the most interesting part of your photo and (b) use tilt-shift and motion blur effects towards...

Unfortunately, the days of massive health care data breaches are far from over. Premera Blue Cross has revealed that hackers breached its insurance customer data starting in May 2014, potentially exposing both the financial and medical records of 11 ...

An anonymous reader writes: According to a Wall Street Journal report (paywalled) Apple is in negotiations with media companies to develop an online TV service. The service will include a bundle of roughly 25 channels, so less popular channels will have a very difficult time fighting for a spot. Most major networks should be present, although NBC's participation is dubious because of its ties to Comcast, which would be in direct competition with Apple's service. "If Apple can offer a comprehensive, albeit slimmed-down, bundle for $30 to $40 a month, that could force distributors to cut prices or eat into margins to retain subscribers. At Comcast, for example, average video revenue per user should be about $79.45 in 2015, according to UBS. Meanwhile, its programming costs per average subscriber should be about $39.60. Those costs may need to rise. That roughly 50% gross margin looks vulnerable."

Read the full article at TidBITS, the oldest continuously published technology publication on the Internet. To get a full-text RSS feed, help support our work and become a TidBITS member! Members also enjoy an ad-free version of our Web site, email delivery of individual articles, the ability to make long comments with live links, and discounts on Take Control orders and other Apple-related products.

Here are some of the best free apps, app updates and new apps that have landed in the App Store recently. Today's notable apps include a discount on ColorStrokes, the new Adventures of Poco Eco - Lost Sounds game, and an update to VSCO Cam. All app prices are USD and subject to change. Some deals may expire quickly, so grab them while you can.

iOS Apps Now Free

ColorStrokes [Now free, down from $1.99] iPhone version of the most popular Color Splash app for Mac.

Boom Boat [Now free, down from $1.99] An unknown menace is lurking at the bottom of the sea.

Quotes Folder [Now free, down from $0.99] Collect and share the quotes and famous phrases you love. Includes quotes in 5...

Zeroing in on the precise source of gunfire is next to impossible in densely packed cities like New York City. Shots reverberate off of building facades, obscuring the shooter's location and costing law enforcement precious response time. But with a ...

Apple has added dozens of new banks and credit unions to its list of institutions that support its Apple Pay mobile payment service. The new banks include several credit unions from around the United States as well as Charles Schwab Bank, RBC Bank, and other notable additions. The more than 30 banks added today are rolling out ahead of next month’s Apple Watch launch which will support making Apple Pay payments in stores. Below is the list of newly added banks as well as the full list of banks and credit unions where Apple Pay is currently supported:

Redesign your home with Planner 5D, use AudioMate for your audio controls, and more

This week’s roundup of new Mac apps includes an app that helps you keep up with your favorite musicians, an app that can batch-convert your photos to different file formats, and an app that helps you calculate fractions (so you don't have to!).

A report on Tuesday points out that a recent SSL/TSL vulnerability dubbed "FREAK" is not restricted to Web browsers and can affect mobile apps, leaving hundreds of iOS apps open to potential man-in-the-middle attacks.

Apple recently picked up approximately 260,000 square feet of office space not far from its new Campus 2 project in Cupertino, as noted in a lease discovered this week by Silicon Valley Business Journal.

The buildings are part of a new, downtown-style mixed-use center rapidly taking shape next to Vallco Shopping Mall… Apple Inc., brokers with real estate services firm DTZ and the property owner either declined to comment or didn’t respond to my requests, but the lease was disclosed in a document filed with the county on Monday.

According to The Wall Street Journal, Apple is getting ready to launch an internet-based TV service this fall. Interestingly, though, one of the most prominent US television networks, NBC, reportedly won't be a part of the technology giant's upcoming...

Last week we posted a report titled "Apple is working with Intel on a New Special Smartphone for Emerging Markets." Outside of China, some have asked why would Apple care about the other BRIC countries like India, Russia and Brazil. Well a new study published yesterday spells out that smartphone ...

Ford may have ditched Microsoft for the next generation of its Sync interface, but that doesn't mean Microsoft no longer has a place in Blue Oval's cars. If anything, it's more important than ever. Ford has unveiled the Service Delivery Network, a cl...

By faith and begorrah, it's St. Patrick's Day, so grab a green beer and listen in on your friendly leprechaun Steve O'Sande who is bringing you the Apple news o' the day.

According to the Wall Street Journal and New York Times, it appears that Apple will finally offer a streaming TV service later this year, making it easier and more affordable for people to cut the cable subscriptions.

The Facebook Messenger app for iOS is rolling out a new feature that lets friends send money to each other.

TidBITS reports that iCloud is having issues receiving messages from Gmail.

Apple wins a $100 million patent licensing lawsuit after losing a big one last month.

Apple has its own magnetic charging bracelet for Apple Watch, but it will likely be limited to retail displays to keep devices on retail store floors charged for extended periods of time. In addition, the company has developed a special case capable of storing and charging 10 Apple Watches at once, allowing retail employees to help customers wanting to try the Apple Watch on in-store.

An FCC application for the Apple Watch Magnetic Charging Bracelet was recently published online detailing “a stainless steel magnetic charging bracelet which includes an inductive charging coil to charge the Apple Watch.” The bracelet is attached to a 1-meter cable, allowing all of the Watches under Apple’s...

While almost all the attention paid to the HTTPS-crippling FREAK vulnerability has focused on browsers, consider this: thousands of Android and iOS apps, many with finance, shopping, and medical uses, are also vulnerable to the same exploit that decrypts passwords, credit card details, and other sensitive data sent between handsets and Internet servers.

Security researchers from FireEye recently examined the most popular apps on Google Play and the Apple App Store and found 1,999 titles that left users wide open to the encryption downgrade attack. Specifically, 1,228 Android apps with one million or more downloads were vulnerable, while 771 out of the top 14,079 iOS apps were susceptible. Vulnerable apps were those that used—or in the case of iOS, could use—an affected crypto library and connected to servers that offered weak...

The jury deliberated for about five hours before delivering its verdict on Monday night. The company, whose patents were originally held by Nokia Corp, was seeking $100 million in damages at trial. It said it was entitled to a portion of Apple’s device sales, and of similar, future devices. Apple pegged damages, if any, at less than $1 million.

The jury also rejected Apple’s claim that Core Wireless breached its obligation to license its patents, which are considered essential in the industry, on fair and non-discriminatory terms.

So what happens to these patents now? Apple basically said it would be happy paying under $1 million, but the jury said they had to pay nothing. Are the patents worthless? Oh the patent system is so confusing.

You wouldn't expect to be let in to a fine art auction wearing nothing but tighty whities, but starting April 1st, no one's going to be able to stop you. Sotheby's has teamed up with its digital counterpart, eBay, to launch its long-promised digital ...

Ahead of the Apple Watch launch next month, Apple has removed language from its website signaling it has received all necessary final approvals from the US Federal Communications Commission.

Up until today, Apple’s website included the following footnote noting that the device had not yet been authorized by the FCC for sale:

This device has not been authorized as required by the rules of the Federal Communications Commission. This device is not, and may not be, offered for sale or lease, or sold or leased, until authorization is obtained.

While the language on Apple’s site only refers to the FCC, Apple is likely required to gain approvals from authorities in some of the other countries receiving the device next month. Apple will launch Apple...

A new report today reveals that Facebook’s instant messaging service, which is one of the largest platforms in the world with more than 500 million monthly users, isn’t just for sending smiley faces and photos anymore. No, now you can use it to send money instantly to your friends.

iCloud users are reporting problems receiving email messages sent from Gmail. There doesn’t appear to be anything that can be done about it, other than pointing Gmail-based correspondents to an alternative email address.

Read the full article at TidBITS, the oldest continuously published technology publication on the Internet. To get a full-text RSS feed, help support our work and become a TidBITS member! Members also enjoy an ad-free version of our Web site, email delivery of individual articles, the ability to make long comments with live links, and discounts on Take Control orders and other Apple-related products.

Apple plans to incentivize participation in its upcoming TV service by offering to share data with its programming partners, the New York Post reports. A report earlier today revealed that Apple is planning a web TV service expected to be released this fall, and this latest information indicates that the company has found it necessary to make certain concessions to get broadcast networks and others on board. Shared data would include who the viewers…

My cable provider is pretty terrible. I don’t need to name any names because this likely applies to your cable provider as well. They are all horrible. I often experience drops on popular channels, get bonus filler channels that no one wants, and see indiscriminate additional subscription fees and charges without any real reason. This Onion article, though it is satire, doesn’t stray too far from the truth.

For a very casual TV watcher, it’s not a great experience – to put it mildly.

So the prospect of an Apple web TV service with a price tag of around $40, as the WSJ and others reported last night, is highly appealing to me if it means I can catch the few shows I watch now without the hassle of my cable...

PowerSkin introduced its Pop'n 2 battery pack last October, and the company has already released a new edition, Pop'n 3 ($50). While Pop'n 2 relied on a separate Lightning connector to attach the pack to an iPhone, Pop'n 3 includes a built-in Lightning cable — the pack can also come with a micro-USB connector instead. As expected from Pop'n, the pack's suction cups remain, enabling the battery to stick to the back of an iPhone. The phone can then be used while charging. Pop'n 3 also has a circular sticky pad in the middle. Like Pop'n 2, Pop'n 3 uses a 4000 mAh battery.{/exp:char_limit}

Facebook has today announced it is rolling out a new feature for users that will let friends send money to each other, through its Facebook Messenger app. Like similar services, a simple tap allows users to send a cash amount to their recipient in a single step.

Users must first associate a Visa or MasterCard debit card to their Facebook accounts. Then, a ‘$’ symbol appears in the Facebook Messenger user interface alongside the chatbox. Sharing credit card information with Facebook is a dangerous prospect for many people, although the company says it will not monetize the service ‘at this time’. For the time being, sending money has no charge per transaction above the cash...

Becoming the fastest of its kind is just a byproduct of the ATRIAS robot's primary objective. Oregon State University's biped is the focus of a loftier goal: to build an entire industry on its leg locomotion mechanics. ATRIAS -- for "Assume The Robot Is A Sphere" -- has its origins at OSU, but there are three prototypes of the bird-like bot. The other two are in labs at the University of Michigan and Carnegie Mellon, which collaborated with OSU on development of the robot's controls.

With rumors flying about an Apple television subscription service in the works for release this year, new details have started to emerge about what kinds of deals the tech company will make with its content partners. The NY Post says that these deals will involve Apple turning over certain data about its users to programmers to help solidify its agreements.

Apple is reportedly giving TV partners a lot of leeway, allowing each network to decide how...

After the iPad was announced -- but before it actually appeared in stores -- a friend of mine here in Denver created some mock iPads made by printing up a full-size image of an iPad and then gluing it onto Foamcore. The result was convincing enough that I walked into an Apple Store with the mockup and got more attention than I wanted from employees and customers alike. Well, now you can see how an Apple Watch in any size and with most bands will look on your wrist, thanks to ExactFitnessApps.

If you were hoping for a tangible reason to invest in a new 2015 MacBook Air, it might have arrived in the form of a faster solid state drive.

Last week, Apple refreshed its MacBook Air lineup, adding Broadwell chips and Intel 6000 graphics. Both models received the same processor updates, but the 13-inch MacBook Air got an extra boost in the form of new PCIe-based flash storage that Apple says is “up to two times faster” than the flash storage used in the previous generation MacBook Air. The 11-inch MacBook Air did not receive the same flash storage update.

Software Updates via MacUpdate

MacFamilyTree 7.3.4 - Create and explore...

MacFamilyTree gives genealogy a facelift: it's modern, interactive, incredibly fast, and easy to use. We're convinced that generations of chroniclers would have loved to trade in their genealogy... Read more

Yummy FTP 1.10.2 - FTP/SFTP/FTPS client...

Yummy FTP is an FTP + SFTP + FTPS file transfer client which focuses on speed, reliability and productivity.
Whether you need to transfer a few files or a few thousand, schedule automatic backups, or... Read more

VueScan 9.5.08 - Scanner software with a...

VueScan is a scanning program that works with most high-quality flatbed and film scanners to produce scans that have excellent color fidelity and color balance. VueScan is easy to use, and has... Read more

Iridient Developer 3.0.1 - Powerful imag...

Iridient Developer (was RAW Developer) is a powerful image conversion application designed specifically for OS X. Iridient Developer gives advanced photographers total control over every aspect of... Read more

Air Video Server HD 2.1.0 - Stream video...

Air Video Server HD streams videos instantly from your computer on your iPhone, iPad, iPod touch or Apple TV. No need to worry about converting or transferring files.
We took everything that was... Read more

Duplicate Annihilator 5.7.5 - Find and d...

Duplicate Annihilator takes on the time-consuming task of comparing the images in your iPhoto library using effective algorithms to make sure that no duplicate escapes.
Duplicate Annihilator... Read more

BusyContacts 1.0.2 - Fast, efficient con...

BusyContacts is a contact manager for OS X that makes creating, finding, and managing contacts faster and more efficient. It brings to contact management the same power, flexibility, and sharing... Read more

Capture One Pro 8.2.0.82 - RAW workflow...

Capture One Pro 8 is a professional RAW converter offering you ultimate image quality with accurate colors and incredible detail from more than 300 high-end cameras -- straight out of the box. It... Read more

Backblaze 4.0.0.872 - Online backup serv...

Backblaze is an online backup service designed from the ground-up for the Mac.With unlimited storage available for $5 per month, as well as a free 15-day trial, peace of mind is within reach with... Read more

Little Snitch 3.5.2 - Alerts you about o...

Little Snitch gives you control over your private outgoing data.
Track background activity As soon as your computer connects to the Internet, applications often have permission to send any... Read more

Pie In The Sky: A Pizza Odyssey 1.0
Device: iOS Universal
Category: Games
Price: $2.99, Version: 1.0 (iTunes)
Description:
A game about delivering pizza. In space.
| Read more »

Chosen Gives Hopeful Singers, Songwriter...

If YouTube videos and reality TV shows like The Voice have taught us one thing, it’s that there are a lot of people out there who are anxious to show the world their talents. And if they’ve taught us a second thing, it’s that there’s an almost... | Read more »

Android's Popular OfficeSuite Now A...

Once only available for Android devices, OfficeSuite has finally landed on the app store. The Mobile Systems app lets you view, edit, create, and share Word, Excel, and PowerPoint documents as well as convert them to/from PDFs. It's touted as being... | Read more »

Warhammer: Arcane Magic is Coming Soon,...

Turbo Tape Games has announced that they're joining forces with Games Workshop to bring the turn-based strategy board game, Warhammer: Arcane Magic, to life on the iOS.
| Read more »

Fast & Furious: Legacy's Creati...

| Read more »

N-Fusion and 505's Ember is Totally...

| Read more »

These are All the Apple Watch Apps and G...

The Apple Watch is less than a month from hitting store shelves, and once you get your hands on it you're probably going to want some apps and games to install. Fear not! We've compiled a list of all the Apple Watch apps and games we've been able to... | Read more »

Appy to Have Known You - Lee Hamlet Look...

Being at 148Apps these past 2 years has been an awesome experience that has taught me a great deal, and working with such a great team has been a privilege. Thank you to Rob Rich, and to both Rob LeFebvre and Jeff Scott before him, for helping me... | Read more »

Hands-On With Allstar Heroes - A Promisi...

Let’s get this out of the way quickly. Allstar Heroes looks a lot like a certain other recent action RPG release, but it turns out that while it’s not yet available here, Allstar Heroes has been around for much longer than that other title. Now that... | Read more »

Macho Man and Steve Austin Join the Rank...

WWE Immortals, by Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment and WWE, has gotten a superstar update. You'll now have access to Macho Man Randy Savage and Steve Austin. Both characters have two different versions: Macho Man Randy Savage Renegade or Macho... | Read more »

Price Scanner via MacPrices.net

Adobe Brings Powerful Layout-Design Capabilit...

Adobe today announced the availability of Adobe Comp CC, a free iPad app that enables rapid creation of layout concepts for mobile, Web and print projects. With Comp CC, designers can rough out and... Read more

Apple offering refurbished 27-inch 5K iMacs f...

The Apple Store is offering Apple Certified Refurbished 27″ 3.5GHz 5K iMacs for $2119 including free shipping. Their price is $380 off the price of new models, and it’s the lowest price available for... Read more

16GB iPad mini on sale for $199, save $50

Walmart has 16GB iPad minis (1st generation) available for $199.99 on their online store, including free shipping. Their price is $50 off MSRP. Online orders only.
Read more

The Apple Store has Apple Certified Refurbished 13″ 2.6GHz/128GB Retina MacBook Pros available for $979 including free shipping. Original MSRP for this model was $1299.
Read more

Save up to $600 with Apple refurbished Mac Pr...

The Apple Store is offering Apple Certified Refurbished Mac Pros for up to $600 off the cost of new models. An Apple one-year warranty is included with each Mac Pro, and shipping is free. The... Read more

Samsung Galaxy S 6 and Galaxy S 6 edge U.S. P...

Samsung Electronics America, Inc. has announced the Galaxy S 6 and Galaxy S 6 edge will be available in the U.S. beginning April 10, with pre-orders being accepted now.
“We have completely reimagined... Read more

13-inch 2.5GHz MacBook Pro (refurbished) avai...

The Apple Store has Apple Certified Refurbished 13″ 2.5GHz MacBook Pros available for $829, or $270 off the cost of new models. Apple’s one-year warranty is standard, and shipping is free:
- 13″ 2.... Read more

MacTech is a registered trademark of Xplain Corporation. Xplain, "The journal of Apple technology", Apple Expo, Explain It, MacDev, MacDev-1, THINK Reference, NetProfessional, Apple Expo, MacTech Central, MacTech Domains, MacNews, MacForge, and the MacTutorMan are trademarks or service marks of Xplain Corporation. Sprocket is a registered trademark of eSprocket Corporation. Other trademarks and copyrights appearing in this printing or software remain the property of their respective holders. Not responsible for typographical errors.

All contents are Copyright 1984-2011 by Xplain Corporation. All rights reserved. Theme designed by Icreon.